Family Portraits

By Luisiana Mera

January 7, 2017– January 28, 2017

Opening Reception:

First Saturday Gallery Crawl: January 7, 2017; 6-9pm

Blend Studio will be hosting new work by Luisiana Mera during the month of January. The artist will be available on the opening night of the First Saturday Art Crawl.

Artist Statement

In this series I have created work to reflect on the experiences and places depicted in photographed moments and respective traditions. I have collected images from my family, carefully reproducing them. These images act as a preservation of memory, if only a residue of a true memory replicated with sincere intention, they become opposed to the passage of time. This very personal ritualistic practice of replication has evolved into collaboration between my family, and I. It has allowed me to connect with them and create new experiences with them as subjects in these images.

Family is a theme I return to constantly. It is a subject I believe is universally personal. These works act as documentation to my dynamic and complicated relationship with them. It is documentation of my worries of a fading relationship, with age, with distance. My grandmother, the lasting matriarch in my family, is the central focus in this series. For me, she embodies this fear of loss of relationship. The great amount of time I spend with these images of her acts as a surrogate to the relationship I lack.

When I look at her it is almost a mirror. I am afraid of the time she represents; the time before her, and after slows. Everything I have I can see in her; simultaneously, I am faced with the realization of my absence from these moments. This absence leaves me empty. In a way, spending hours with images of this representation acts as a way to fill in the empty space. As I add detail to the low quality images, time is replaced. I add intention when it is lacking. Replication is devotion to remembering. I have spent hundreds of hours perfecting her on my drawings. Her cheekbones, her hair, her eyes, her skin, her wrinkles, her details are attentively remembered and recreated.

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